US President George Bush looks set to lose a close political ally on the Iraq war and climate change, with Australian Prime Minister John Howard facing defeat at the national election to be held on Saturday.
Mr Howard’s support of Bush administration policies in these areas have cost him broad support among Australian voters, including members of his own Liberal Party.
Like former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Mr Howard’s alignment with Mr Bush in Iraq may well cost him his political career. It is by far considered his most grave transgression by Australians, most of whom have opposed the war from the outset.
Currently, the Australian Labor Party leads the Liberal Party in the polls by 8 to 10 points, enough to put Labor in government on Saturday if the trend continues.
And although Mr Howard is now trying to correct his perceived aloofness and skepticism regarding the critical issue of climate change, the message has not resonated with Australian voters.
“Australia must act now if we are to avoid truly devastating impacts of climate change,” said Labor’s Shadow Environment Minister, Peter Garrett. “And if federal Labor forms government next weekend, it will ratify the Kyoto Protocol.
“There are only three countries which have signed Kyoto but failed to ratify it. They are Australia, the United States and Kazakhstan,” he added.
The central issue on the domestic front is the Howard Government’s deeply unpopular industrial relations reforms, called “WorkChoices”, which laid the groundwork for the removal of rights, protections and benefits that Australian workers have taken for granted for decades.
These include the right to collective bargaining agreements, universal protection under Unfair Dismissal legislation and higher rates of pay for casual, evening or weekend work. Many workers have also felt forced to sign individual contracts that reduced their paid holiday leave, which for the vast majority of Australian workers had been four weeks per year plus public holidays.
“It’s like when we used to send kids down into mines,” 61 year-old Annette Virgen of Queensland told Bloomberg Press. “The workers are powerless. I was a Liberal voter all my life until these laws.” Ms Virgen had worked as a dispatch clerk for a Brisbane printing company until she was fired in March without notice.
More than half a million Australians took to the streets to protest the reforms before they were introduced in 2006. The leader of the opposition, Labor’s Kevin Rudd, has promised to abolish the widely-hated reforms if he is elected.
Apart from losing national government, Mr Howard faces the equally embarrassing prospect of being ousted from his own seat of Bennelong, which he has held since 1974.
Labor’s Maxine McKew, a highly distinguished journalist, is currently tipped to wrest the seat away from Mr Howard by a razor-thin margin of 2.7 percent. It would be only the second time in Australian history that a prime minister has lost his seat in a general election.
Mr Howard has led the federal Liberal-National Party coalition government in Australia for 11 years.
